The comments quickly became the subject of a GOP campaign to blast the Obama administration’s environmental policies, with Republicans arguing in a stream of media interview and statements that the EPA is unfairly targeting oil and gas companies.

“[T]he Committee anticipates that it will request your presence at a hearing in the near future to examine enforcement priorities and practices of the agency,” the committee Republicans wrote to Armendariz in a letter Friday.

The letter notes that the committee invited Armendariz to testify at a field hearing in Texas last year, but EPA clean air chief Gina McCarthy testified in his place.